


Immune to the Stars

by stardropdream



Series: Garrison in Thedas [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4618797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ideas featuring Porthos & Aramis in the world of Thedas (aka, Dragon Age AU).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immune to the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike the other drabbles I'm posting in a sudden row, this is one I wrote a little ago. Originally posted [here](http://stardropdream.tumblr.com/post/126196555677/i-recently-got-into-portamis-and-was-going-through), I had an anon ask me if I had any thoughts on a fic for qunari!Porthos and Thedas-verse portamis. I could never decide what route to take so this is a collection of some snippets of ideas. Each one stands individually. 
> 
> I didn't want to put it in the tags cause it makes it sound more dramatic, but the last one deals with The Calling of the grey wardens, and thus has implied character death in it.

**I.**  
Dragonhide gloves weren’t easy to come by, but with that and a gentled whispered barrier spell around his hands, it lets him pick up the traditional brush and its accompanying traditional stamp. This way, at least, he can be the one to paint on Porthos’ vitaar. The room smells of the substance, poison and promise, loose in its bowl and waiting to harden against his skin. 

Aramis sits before him now, looking uncomfortable – not for the poison drying across his forehead and hardening against bronzed skin, but rather that there might be a slip-up, that Aramis, untrained and bas that he is, would end up dying because he is a sentimental fool. But Aramis is insistent, and Porthos has never been one to deny him anything. (How could he, when Aramis looked at him with such longing whenever holding the brush, let out a small, delicate whine when he confesses _I hate that I can’t touch you when you wear that._ And when suggested he should go without it, that same distressed noise and _I won’t have you die because I want to touch you._ ) 

Aramis sits in front of Porthos now, coaxes Porthos to drop his head forward so Aramis can paint delicate dot upon delicate dot across Porthos’ forehead. He’s known Porthos’ usual method – slash it across his face, down his cheeks, the dip of his lip and the exposed edges of his throat. The Orlesian armor is substantial enough that Porthos rarely paints his chest or arms, preferring the emblem of their queen to protect him over practices from the qun he left far too long ago to remember. It is something, though – a reminder of his mother, who left her home far too long ago, in love and longing, dying out in the streets of Orlais with no one left to mourn her but Porthos. 

The paint goes on red but dries out black, a mix of felandaris and deathroot. Aramis paints little dots over his brow, and Porthos keeps his face perfectly slack, perfectly serene. 

“Better not be painting something ridiculous,” Porthos finally breathes out a quarter of an hour into the painting. 

“Such little faith,” Aramis tuts, tilts his head as he drags the brush along the edge of his cheekbone, a sweeping, delicate movement – the entire vitaar painted on with careful hands, careful designs, softening Porthos around his horns and his scars. 

Athos pops his head in, purses his lips to see them still in the middle of this. “Are we going to have to call the healer for your hands?” 

“My hands are quite well,” Aramis sniffs disdainfully, and holds up his hands to show both the gloves and his barrier. He waves the brush pointedly towards Athos. “Come closer and let’s see how that human nose of yours holds up beneath it.” 

“We’re heading out to the border soon,” Athos drawls out, thoroughly unimpressed by Aramis’ antics even as Porthos struggles to hold in his smile. 

“Yes, yes, oh illustrious captain,” Aramis teases around a toothy grin. He turns to Porthos and says in a mock-whisper, “A chevalier’s work is never done, clearly.” 

Porthos chuckles behind him and Athos snorts, rolls his eyes, and ducks his head back out again. Aramis smiles to himself, dimpled and pleased, and returns to his work. “I want to draw peacock feathers on your shoulders. May I?” 

“Peacocks, are you kidding me?” Porthos asks, laughing, and his smile cracks the drying vitaar around his cheeks – but it’s just as well, as Porthos should always be smiling. Aramis dabs a spot of vitaar against his nose. Sweeps it so that it looks like a small little heart. 

“Better not to paint too much of you, though,” Aramis sighs, staring at his smiling mouth. “I hate not being able to touch you after a battle.” 

Porthos is giving him the kind of look he gives him when he wants to kiss him but isn’t because of _poison_. Aramis tuts again. 

“I need to commission someone to design a helmet you can wear around your horns,” he mutters to himself, and runs his free hand over the arcing curve of Porthos’ horns, not unlike those of an August Ram as they spiral back into the thick burst of his hair. 

“Dragon skull,” Porthos offers. 

“Now that I think might be a little ridiculous.”

“Dragonling skull,” Porthos relents.

“Much better,” Aramis whispers, pressing his thumb to Porthos’ lip – a promise for a kiss later. He wishes he could feel him beneath the magic and the dragonskin. 

 

**II.**  
Mercenary work is all well and good, except they have some very firm limitations on where they can offer their services. It seems that the blacklist just keeps on growing. For obvious reasons, Porthos nixes Tevinter before they can even debate the coin, too used to looking over his shoulder for Ben-Hassrath. That close to what was once _home_ is unacceptable. Aramis emphasizes how very, very much Antivan politics are just horrendously boring and very firmly does _not_ mention that One Time with the Crows. Athos gets increasingly tight-lipped whenever the Free Marches are mentioned, and in particular anything having to do with nobility or Kirkwall. And d’Artagnan, sweet and cranky soul that he is, doesn’t seem to have a problem with anything one way or another – so long as they aren’t going underground and _I don’t care what you think, Aramis, just because I’m a dwarf doesn’t mean I want to be under there._

Which essentially leaves Orlais. Sometimes Ferelden, so long as they try not to get too mixed up in Orzammar and just avoid the Frostbacks in general. Perhaps Nevarra, if they’re in the mood. But the coin is good and flows easily in Orlais – and as Aramis likes to point out, the patronesses are always eager to repay any debt in coin with far more interesting pursuits. He’s even dragged Porthos along a few times if only because he loves watching the way the women get atwitter when they see Porthos’ size and his scars, his horns and the deep set of his eyes. 

Of course, Orlais proves its own difficulties when it comes to politics – as only Athos, really, can pass without judgment, knowing how to move along upper echelons without much incident and with only a quarter of his usual disdain. Their dear d’Artagnan is viewed with mild curiosity. Aramis is viewed with thinly veiled disdain, a runaway Dalish. Porthos is outright gawked at in such a way that no fans or masks can hide their surprise, their disgust and superiority. 

Aramis likes the masks. Today, he’s wearing one of bright blues and sweeping golds, and Porthos can see his grin and his eyes bright with satisfaction. He’s fashioned his hair to cover his ears. He’s holding up a burning red mask for Porthos’ examination, trying to hook it around his ears and horns without incident. 

“Why do we have to wear these again?” Porthos asks, because he thinks the entire thing is rather foolish – it isn’t as if anyone’s going to somehow _not_ notice he’s qunari. 

Aramis traces along Porthos’ jaw in pure indulgence. “It’s only until the Inquisition gets here. Also, it’s fun.” 

They were on route to offer their services to the Inquisition – could never be without more willing soldiers, after all, and clearly d’Artagnan was eager to become one of maybe five dwarves there. The Inquisition was yet a few years old, hardly in need of any pressing matters, but the money looked good, and it being mostly based in Ferelden offered all four a nice waylay away from their usually We Do Not Go There blacklist. 

Aramis finishes tying off the mask and nods his satisfaction. “There you go. Very handsome.” 

“Hmph,” Porthos snorts, but grins a slightly crooked smile all the same. 

 

**III.**  
“Ready, _ma vhenan_?” Aramis asks, voice quiet – he is afraid, but cannot show it. He blinks once, looks up at Porthos – who is watching him with that quiet, gentled expression of his. The lanterns of the Deep Roads do little to illuminate, but the fire of their torch flickers across dark stone, dark tunnels, dark paths left untouched for hundreds of years. 

He shifts closer, reaches out, takes Porthos’ free hand. Porthos’ other hand still clutches his waraxe tight. Their gauntlets block true touch, and Aramis’ hand feels dwarfed (an appropriate thought, given their location) as Porthos threads their fingers together. The light of their torch reflects off the gold plating around his curving horns – a gift, long ago, from Aramis on the birthday no one else could remember to celebrate. They’d celebrated Aramis’ only a few months before – some kind of testament, some kind of statement in the face of their fate: Grey Wardens, a fate of walking death, and yet they both celebrated the passing years together. 

Crows feet touch at the corner of Porthos’ eyes and they have truly lived a long life. Nothing to be ashamed of. They could have lived longer, in another life – or they could have lived something far shorter and less worthwhile. But they have lived this one together. That is more than Aramis could ever ask for. 

“Ready,” Porthos agrees, looking out across the long expanse of the nearly collapsed bridge, the gateway down into the dark, dank deep roads, further still than even the Legion of the Dead would dare to go. He breathes in, his armor swelling across his chest, and Aramis can feel the way his hand shakes all the same. 

Aramis grips his bow, feels the sling of lightning dancing in the bottles hanging at his hip – not magic, but something like alchemy, something he once delighted in. They step forward, heavy footsteps echoing in the deep chasms of the Deep Roads. 

He can hear the cry in his veins – The Calling, that deep and terrifying drag further and further towards their mortality. Aramis pauses, looks up at Porthos and finds that Porthos is looking at him the same. 

“ _Kadan,_ ” Porthos murmurs, and it’s the only thing he really needs to say in order for Aramis to feel safer again, and he tears up, nodding – thinking of the life he’s lived before finding himself here – marked with falon’din and yet cast out of that world, the peace and tranquility offered by the chantry sisters, finding his way to the grey wardens – d’Artagnan, Athos… Porthos. 

“It is better that we should do this together,” Aramis whispers, reaches up to catch Porthos by his horn and draw him in, kissing him – for the last time, for the final time, with as much strength as he can muster. “We go together, or not at all, _ma'arlath_.” 

The words come easy, lighter, and Porthos nods when they draw back. He gives him a crooked smile. “Go on, then. Tell me about your Maker.” 

Marked by lost gods, words thick on his tongue with a clan he long since left behind, walking beside a man who has yet never known the qun, never known protection or purpose before joining the grey wardens – the first qunari known to don the gryphon – this, too, seems fate. It is a common practice, that these moments should be marked by Aramis’ reassuring words to Porthos. 

Aramis speaks of the Maker, His guidance and his light, and clasps Porthos’ hand tight as they walk into the shadow of the Deep Roads together, never to be seen again.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on [my tumblr](http://stardropdream.tumblr.com).


End file.
